Drifting Souls
by Ivory Feather
Summary: A young cellist is unwittingly adopted into the madness that seems to follow Shindou Shuichi and his companions wherever they go; will her mysterious ability of musical empathy start rusty cogs turning again?
1. This is My Box

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter I - This is My Box  
  
I Never Travel Without It  
  
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The sharp sound of black stilleto heels echoed in the hall within the majestic, yet somehow unflattering corporate builting of SoundSoft Tokyo. They clacked along indignantly, sometimes faltering, as if the wearer carried an unimaginibly heavy weight upon her shoulders. Cross mutterings followed the sound of the heels like a piece of metal infallibly drawn to a magnet in a trail that could have easily been picked up by anyone looking for the sort of inane mutterings only one who has just become put out utters. Only an ant could have detected the subtle differences in the rhythm of the pounding footwear to gather the knowledge that though the wearer was quite irate, there was a bit of freedom in their feet. However, such knowledge is useless to an ant, and no one would listen to one given the choice.  
  
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Yamishika Hikari emerged from the building that was a symbol of the company that had been her support, her backbone, and her encouragement for almost half a year; she felt absolutely no remorse in doing so. In fact, she felt freer than she had in ages. The worn strap connecting her shoulder to a loved and worn piece of metal and plastic squeaked encouragingly, though it, as always, had nothing much to say. She paid it no heed but for a loving pat, and continued her walk to the street just in front. If she was lucky she would get a cab, and if she weren't, she would continue to wait until she was lucky, for walking long blocks home with one's shoulder attached to a piece of metal and plastic is not the most enjoyable task.  
  
Abandoning the unshapely burden was out of the question, however, for like the lump of ugly rock which holds a beautiful quartz, her burden was a precious one. Within the unweildy box which held only the vague shape of the wonder encased in it lay Hikari's most important thing that she could remember; her specially crafted jewel, her wooden cello.  
  
In fact, the reason Hikari was in the SoundSoft building at all, for it was indeed one of the more well known labels in Japan, was because of her cello and her music. Maybe she didn't have as much of a rabid following as any one of the new J-pop and rock bands, say Bad Luck, but she was pretty popular if she did say so myself; and it happened that she did say so. It was SoundSoft that had taken her in and re-mixed her into something the public would eat, even if they had to be spoonfed. Since she was something new, they didn't even have to be spoonfed. Everyone knew about her, even if they didn't happen to like her at all, and it was all the doing of SoundSoft.  
  
That was what stuck in her throat, and wouldn't go away. Something about the SoundSoft 'family' just wasn't what she wanted. Sure the promotion was nice, and she was doing fairly well, but something was still off colour; sort of a sickly hue.  
  
"Yamishika-san is doing well enough," they had said, as she passed by the president's office on her way out one day, "but we're afraid that if we don't convince her to get something besides that acoustic cello she's always using, sales will go down. Sure she's good, maybe even gifted. She can make you feel things with that cello, sure enough, but so many solo albums of piece after piece gets monotonous after a while. It's not showing now, but I fear for the future." Soon after, she bought her first six stringed electric cello. It was a beautiful and shiny ebony cello, and she named it Tsuki and had it inlaid in silver on the back in romanji, because it looked more graceful at the time. Going a little farther, she had a crescent moon done on the front, just for the namesake.  
  
The company never suspected that Hikari had heard them speaking, and were quite surprised when she showed them the addition. She produced a new array of songs within months, and buisness was doing well. However after a few weeks they stopped recognizing her, so she assumed they still weren't happy, and then proved they weren't today, when she passed the office again.  
  
"Yamashika-san's ratings are doing well now, but I think we're scheduling too much for her. Yamashika Hikari may be one of SoundSoft's hits, but she's a girl; and she's a soloist. How much longer do you think she can keep this up?" Three and a half seconds later, Yamashika Hikari severed her contract, and departed the monolithic building forever. For the first time, she was feeling free again.  
  
'Of course the press'd be all over me, but I could handle it. The million yen question now was... How am I going to support myself?' she thought to herself, the syncopated rhythm of her awkward heels (for show only,) was creating another percussive song in her head. She'd just moved out of her old apartment, and had been staying at a hotel downtown, and was pretty sure that she wouldn't be able to afford anything else, what with the bills on Tsuki still coming. Shaking her head clear of cobwebs and the spiders that went with them, she looked up as a cab turned the corner. Ah, she still had it; lucky until the end.  
  
She asked the driver where she should set her burden; the reply being the obvious, the trunk. She sighed, and nestled her cello back there carefully, before returning to her seat in the back of the cab, and directing the driver to where she had wanted to go. The drive was uneventful, and before she knew it, she was humming again, making up yet another piece for a company she no longer belonged to. Pressing her face close to the window, she breathed a cloud of air on the surface, and began doodling in hiragana all over the cloud it left. The weather was beginning to turn cold, and her breath made a suitable writing surface.  
  
The vehicle stopped on the street, and with apologies to the driver for the window, Hikari left the cab. The cab pulled away, and she turned to look at the drab hotel where she was staying and made a face. Five seconds later, she made another face, not so pleasant as the first.  
  
"Oh, Kami-sama!" was the cry, as the cellist scrabbled in her oh-so- awkward heels to glance at the retreating cab which still contained her cello. Kicking off her shoes without a second thought, she snatched them off the ground and set off at a dead run, trying to catch the cab.  
  
Block after block of feet pounding against the cold sidewalk did no wonders for her feet, and before long she decided that it was useless. She slumped against the wall nearest to her, stared after the damn cab that'd taken her case, and looked generally pathetic; which was one of the only options left for her after this escapade. She managed enough of a smirk to laugh at herself, for this really was a wonderful situation. It looked like, in spite of catching a cab, she would have to walk home.  
  
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Yuki Eiri was in trouble. He could vaguely recall Shuichi's inane ramblings up to the point where he had given up on his lover's sanity and had fallen asleep again. The last few words he could remember before finding the pillows a comfortable place for his tortured ears were, 'Remember to come home early, Yuki, because-.' Because? So here he was, driving back early because Shuichi had undoubtedly planned something. If he missed it, he would be knee deep in tears, and everything would be waterlogged; not a fun way to spend the afternoon.  
  
He was just passing a group of buildings a few blocks away from his destination when he caught sight of his sister, leaning against a wall with an unusual smirk plastered onto her face. One of his eyebrows raised of its own accord, and he vaguely wondered if he should stop and see what was wrong with her. With that look she must certainly have cracked. Of course, he'd never seen Mika in a black trenchcoat either... and was she holding her shoes? That was the final straw; maybe he could pick her up and drop her off at the mental institution on his way, and just hope fervently that Shuichi had tripped over something large that would hamper his progress.  
  
She looked up when the car stopped, wondering what the purpose was; becoming quite surprised when that writer stepped out. Of course things soon got much stranger.  
  
Mika. What are you doing." he said, slowly. Somehow, Hikari could almost feel the backward pulling of the words, as if the one saying them had them attached to a rubberband, and they had to fight to get out and stay out.  
  
"I'm afraid you've mistaken me. I'm not Mika." Wondering if she looked like this 'Mika,' she crossed her arms over her chest, and realized with a slight twinge of embarassment that she was still carring her shoes; she made no move to put them back on, even though her feet were getting quite cold. She then was the proud owner of a look that one receives when the owner is about to give up the chase. Privately wondering if she had indeed taken leave of her senses, Yuki looked at his watch, breathed out a sigh of resignation, and then calmly stated that he had no time for this sort of thing, and that if she'd just get in the car things would be much better.  
  
Hikari sighed, privately wondering if he had taken leave of his senses, before deciding that she could make this into a piece of good fortune if she tried. Maybe after convincing him that she wasn't Mika, she could get him to give her a ride to the cab company so she could get her cello back. So she got in the car; the inside was almost as sleek as the outside, if that was possible.  
  
"Who are you then." Came the question, breaking the silence with a bat similar to ones used to accidentally smash in respectable people's windows. Hikari looked over to the driver, then down at her feet, which incidentally were still not wearing shoes, and then forward again.  
  
"My name is Yamishika Hikari. I've left my cello in the trunk of a cab, and I'm not wearing shoes because I hate heels, and it is not possible to chase cabs while wearing these death traps. I don't know if I look like 'Mika'," Yuki took this opportunity to scrutinize the woman who he had just picked off the street, and with a mental wince he realized that it was not his sister who he had picked up. Granted, she did look very similar, but she had more of a wide-eyed quality than the materialistic Mika, and she was definitely smaller; he cursed his luck, which was undoubetedly taking a turn for the worse if that was possible, for not noticing sooner, and realized she was speaking again. "or not, but since I'm already in the car, would it be possible for you to give me a ride to the cab company so that I could retreive my cello, please?" Closing his eyes for a split second, Yuki worked out the time frame in his head, and decided that he was already late enough, he didn't need this sort of thing right now.  
  
"No." Was the simple answer, which always seemed to deflate people. Hikari shrugged, and sat back. However, the thoughts were running like mice behind her eyes, which made it quite easy to see that she was contemplating something. She looked out of the window as the car began to slow down.  
  
"Where am I going then?" She asked, raising an eyebrow as he parked the car outside the place he shared with Shuichi. Wonderful, Yuki thought, this day is not going at all how I had planned. The plan had been to sit somewhere quiet, and write. These deadlines were giving his already hairline temper split ends. He resigned himself to his fate, watched the firing squad come into position, refused the blindfold and lit a cigarette.  
  
"Come up and have some tea." He tried to make it sound as if the entire event had been planned from the start, and sighed resignedly as the young woman closed the car door and walked up the path behind him, still shoeless.  
  
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Notes: First chapter up, Yatta! No notes yet, because nothing much has happened. ^^  
  
It's only rated Romance/Angst because it will be, overall. ^_^; Just getting warmed up.  
  
Minna-san, review, Onegai?  
  
Flames will be used to roast marshmellows for the starving cast and author.  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals. 


	2. Another World

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter II - Another World  
  
There is no Such Thing as a Coincidence  
  
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Shindou Shuichi bounded cheerfully up to the door, holding a picnic basket in one hand, a big grin pasted on his face. Today he'd asked Yuki to come home early so they could go on a picnic, one of his better ideas if he said so himself, and he was sure Yuki had heard him; if you could consider a groan and the muted thud of a head hitting a pillow a show of assent, which Shuichi did. That meant that they were going on a picnic, and so Shuichi was happy. He pulled his key out of his pocket, and jangled it merrily before unlocking the door and sliding in.  
  
"Yuuuuuuuu-ki! Tadaima!" He called, and listened carefully for any sign of his prey. He then stalked around like a small, pink-haired raptor for a few minutes before reaching the enterance to the room where he slept on the couch rather frequently. He stopped to listen and heard the hum of conversation, he recognised Yuki's voice but who was that woman in there? The child sitting on his mood decided that he had rested enough, and began to swing again.  
  
Didn't Mika say something about giving spare keys to women? Shuichi began to chew on the handle of the picnic basket; it wasn't fair! Didn't Yuki love him? He peeked into the room and was surprised to see Mika there. No, wait, he corrected himself, that wasn't Mika, it was someone else. Mika couldn't make Yuki smile. For indeed, Shuichi could see a little one tugging at the corner of his lover's mouth as if trying to stretch his face into something less cool, as the stranger sat calmly, with her tea balanced perfectly atop her head as she explained something in a stage whisper. The pink-haired vocalist could only hear snippets of it, but it was enough to form a collage of the worst possible thing he could imagine, carefully gluing each piece in place in the picture of his ultimate downfall.  
  
Just then, the chibi kicked off and swung him into a state of hurt before anger, uninvited, forced its way in, his mind running like a rabid gerbil coming up with several conclusions all of them inevitibly incorrect. Of course, he acted on every single one and jumped into the room banana suit and all, half chewed picnic basket in one hand.  
  
"Yuki! Who's that?" He asked, chewing fretfully on the picnic basket again, eyes threatening to spill over in the very act that Yuki had feared would take place. Shuichi stopped his tirade when the intruder got up, took the tea off her head, placed it on the table, and walked over, bowing slightly when she reached him.  
  
"Ah, Shindou-san. I'm sorry for intruding, but my presence here is easily explained." At that, her face seemed to close up for a moment, before reopening like a blossom at the first rays of the nurturing morning sun. "Actually it isn't, it's a really long story." She grinned like a puppy with a particularily juicy bone, and sat down again at the low table, waving for him to come sit. Yuki seemed intent on nursing his suddenly sharp headache, so Shuichi carefully moved over and sat down. "I'm sorry for not introducing myself at first when you asked, but it is better to know late than never, ne? My name is Yamishika Hikari, and..." She stopped her explanatory introduction short when Shuichi began to stare at her. "...Is something the matter?"  
  
Shuichi jumped up, eyes seeming to grow to at least twice their normal size as he stared at Hikari, and pointed a finger at her, complete with face on the tip.  
  
"You're Yamishika-san?" He asked, looking about ready to explode. The object of the sentance blinked profusely, before nodding slowly in a confused fashion. He then jumped next to his lover and began to yell in his ear. "Yuuuuuuuu-ki! You brought home Yamishika Hikari!" the aforementioned girl pointed to herself, wide-eyed with confusion. Yuki groaned slightly as Shuichi yelled in his ear, and let his head rest on the thankfully cool table top. Shuichi, not daunted at all, continued his tirade. "You're the solo cellist with SoundSoft (I don't have any of your CDs... but everyone knows about you!)"  
  
"Actually... I just severed my contract with SoundSoft. They... just weren't what I was looking for." Hikari answered, a little flustered by the vocalist's ranting.  
  
"So!" Shuichi said, looking around everywhere in a matter of split seconds, "Where's your cello?" She rubbed her head, a little embarassed.  
  
"Actually, that's why I'm here."  
  
"Yuki has your cello?" Shuichi asked, perplexed, "That's not fair; give it back, Yuki." He began to admonish the collapsed writer. Hikari shook her head, waving her hand.  
  
"No, no." She reached up, grabbed the genki boy's wrists, and dragged him back to a sitting position. "I had just severed my contract with SoundSoft, and I went out to the street to catch a cab. I put my cello into the trunk and when I got out, I forgot to take it out. I chased the cab down three blocks but the driver didn't see me at all, so I gave up and rested against the wall of a building.  
  
A little bit later Yuki-san drove by and picked me up, thinking I was his sister. We had a rather one-sided discussion in the car, and I told his I wasn't Mika, but we were already here so he invited me up for some tea. You came in about ten minutes afterwards." Hikari explained and then nodded, taking a sip of the aforementioned tea. Shuichi nodded sedately, and absorbed the story. The child sitting on his mood took another swing, and he jumped up again, with a grin plastered across his face.  
  
"You said you severed contract with SoundSoft! That's great!" He yelled, suddenly elated, causing Yuki to wince again, wondering if it was a migrane or a stress headache, and whether or not he should silence Shuichi in the quickest, and generally most effective way possible. Then he looked across the table, remembered the cellist, and decided that that was a bad idea.  
  
Hikari was confused again.  
  
"That's great?" She inquired, as Shuichi nodded ecstatically, waving his hands, picnic plans forgotten in this new piece of information.  
  
"I was just going to go practice up at NG with the rest of the band, I bet we can get you a contract there!" She raised her eyebrow, and opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was, it was lost forever, for Shuichi had grabbed her wrist in his excitement, called for Yuki to promise to wait for him for dinner, and rushed the hapless cellist out the door. Back at the table, the pained writer decided that he'd spent more than enough time awake, and headed back to his room to collapse.  
  
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"Seguchi-san!" called the hyperactive vocalist of Bad Luck from the doorway to the president's office. When he was acknowledged, he dragged a resigned Hikari to the desk and then released her, smiling. "This is Yamishika-san who used to play solo cello for SoundSoft." Seguchi Tohma raised an eyebrow, and the cellist added another mark to her mental blackboard; she was keeping count of the number of times she had caused legendary people she had heard of but never met to raise their eyebrows.  
  
"Used to?" the president asked, flipping through a stack of paperwork.  
  
"Aa. She severed her contract earlier this morning." She nodded, and crossed her arms. Scratching her head, she then realized that she still was not wearing any shoes, and this time didn't even have them with her, she had left them at Yuki's and hadn't had a chance to grab them before Shuichi pulled her out of the door. "I was wondering... maybe she could sign with NG?" Tohma and Hikari blinked in stereo, and then went on to form a soundtrack with the double saying of,  
  
"Ano, Shindou-san..." Hikari continued by herself after the one statement, taking her cue from Seguchi's harried look, and the mounds of paper in neat, extensive, piles all over the desk before them.  
  
"The president looks like he's busy at the moment. Why don't I come listen to your rehersal? I've heard of Bad Luck, of course, but I was so busy that I never actually got to hear you play, except on the radio. Would that be all right with you?" Shuichi looked up, request forgotten, and became excited again.  
  
"Yatta! That's a great idea! I'll go get everything started." With that, he bowed to the president, and scampered out of the room, leaving Hikari dumbfounded again. With a wry smile, she realized that she had better get used to it, for she had happened onto a very unique group of people. What a coincidence. She started to leave, and turned around for a moment when the president called for her to wait a moment.  
  
"Yamishika-san. What is your impression of Shuichi, since I gather that you have only just met him, by your expression." He inquired, simply curious to see if Shindou-san had indeed formed another lasting bond. She smiled again, her expression as dry as a desert.  
  
"He's... very energetic. Yet at the same time I think he has a deeper side, that he only shows on occasion. He changes moods so quickly that it's hard to tell who he really is." She sighed a little, and ran her hand through her hair, letting it fall again, the question answered, yet she still felt pushed to continue. "Yuki-san is a little similar," she chuckled a little and turned to go again, taking Seguchi's sudden silence to mean that she was dismissed. "Why does everyone seem to be wearing masks around here-?" she stated finally, before the door closed with a quiet click behind her.  
  
Tohma was silent for a while, paperwork forgotten, though it maintained a constant position on his desk. She had mentioned Eiri-san, he wondered, how much does she know? It remained silent until the phone began to ring again, and he sighed. Work waited for no one, least of all...  
  
"Hello. Yes, this is NG's president, Seguchi Tohma."  
  
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Notes: ... ;.; I'm such an unimaginitive person! Why can't I have normal notes like the other authors? Any thoughts on Hikari, what I could do with her?  
  
Remember...  
  
Reviews are welcome, and flames will be used to roast marshmellows for the starving cast.  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	3. Not Everyone Has Bad Luck

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter III - Not Everyone Has Bad Luck  
  
A Few of Them Are Lucky  
  
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Shuichi beckoned Hikari with a wave of his hand from the door of the recording studio and she followed the implied path, sticking her head in to watch the members of the band get ready, her presence as of yet, unnoticed. She cast her gold flecked gaze around the room, glance flickering like a skittsh hummingbird from one person to the next. Shuichi himself had become wrapped up in his enterance, seeming to decide that since everyone was pre-occupied, he might as well scare some energy into them. Hikari had no doubt what so ever that he was full enough of what passed for electrical charge, that anyone who touched his personality would yelp, before fizzling. Aside from Shindou-san, she had not made the aquaintance of anyone in the rehersal room yet, but the other band members looked slightly less out of the ordinary than their wine haired leader. 'However,' she thought, 'normal is not a word you can use loosely here, as I have found out.'  
  
The bassist seemed blissfully unaware of everyone's presence, strumming a few soundless and lifeless, as of yet, cords on the guitar that had yet to be brought to life at its owner's beck and call. Fujisaki was fiddling with the keyboard on the synthesizer, playing a remix of some song that was only issuing through his earphones. A tall man with a familiarly shaped object seemed to be self absorbed in the corner, though he broke his own silence with a laugh at several different times, admiring the object... was that a rifle? Hikari shook her head slightly, her slightly mussed sable hair swinging along with the gentle half-amused, half-unnerved shake of her head as if keeping time, or better yet, agreeing with its mistress.  
  
The other corner was occupied in consoling a dark haired man, who was crouching with a few stacks of notes in his visibly trembling hands. He paused a moment in his obvious mental tirade to adjust his glasses, which due to the salty stream charting a course steadily down his cheeks had begun to slip.  
  
The cellist signed, and stepped silently into the room, her feet hissing slightly across the tile as her presence, clad in hose but not shoes, joined the six others already within the confines of the smallish room. Her wandering thoughts had pulled on their boots and were making their way down another untread path in her mind when an earthquake abrubtly opened under the traveler's new boots and pitched the unwary thought back into the swirling abyss of her mind. Vaguely wondering why her thoughts had foot covering, a department in which she was sorely lacking, she looked up in time to see the energetic boy make a grab for the microphone.  
  
"Konnichiwa, minna! Let's get started!" He yelled loudly, a shock of sould blaring throughout the room like a useless fog horn on a bright, cloudless day. The occupants of the room looked up at that, and minna-san, sans Fujisaki, smiled a little, secretly, at his normal rambunctious intrusion. Hiroshi smiled a little wider as he read the subtle nuances of emotion trailing across his close friend's face, and asked the inevitable question of the day.  
  
"You're in a better than usual mood, Shuichi. What's happened? Something earthshaking between you and Yuki? Or something else shaking?" The energetic wonder jumped on top of a chair, and waved his hands excitedly, pointedly ignoring the extra innuendo in Hiro's question. Hikari however, was caught unawares, and flushed a delicate rose pink, not unlike her newfound friend's hair, on Shuichi's behalf, since he seemed not to notice.  
  
"I brought Yamishika-san to listen! So let's do our best, everyone!" He then swung around the microphone pole, and began to dance fluidly in the background. Hikari tried her best to meld with the wall, who was happy with its newest aquisition and began to pull her in. She began to slink out quietly, but was stopped quickly when K made her the target of his newest, and brilliantly polished, aquisition.  
  
"Hold up." K said in heavily accented English, motioning with the rifle that she should proceed to sit in the chair Shuichi had recently vacated. Wondering if she was going to be tied to the chair, for the cellist had learnt quite quickly that almost anything was possible within this building... or out of it, Hikari moved cautiously over to the four- legged bit of wood; she then quickly took a seat, and looked warily at the barrel of the gun that was aimed directly at her forehead.  
  
"Eh, don't worry. K-san wouldn't actually shoot you." Hiro offered while plugging in the guitar. "It gives him quite a hold on everyone, though." she nodded, and turned slightly to watch, aware that this K-san was now leaning against a wall with his arms crossed. He was still holding the gleaming gun though. She sighed softly, raised her hand to scratch her head, decided against it, and leaned back in the chair to see exactly what it was Shuichi had been so hyper about.  
  
"Are we ready now...?" Fujisaki asked monotonely from behind the glass, twitching with slight annoyance bordering on acceptance at the still dancing Shuichi. He received an affirmative from a slightly more attentious member of the band, and hit the enter key, starting up the background for 'The Rage Beat.' The flamboyantly haired vocalist threw himself, literally, into the song; he leaped at the microphone and grabbed it on his way towards the wall, landing exactly where he had 'planned' to. The psuedo-imprisoned cellist stifled a giggle with one hand, squeezing the life out of it before it emerged into the air and embarassed her on the spot. Pretty soon, she found herself nodding to the beat, not aware of it until she looked down and spotted the ends of her hair moving as if by their own jurisdiction.  
  
Actually, it was quite good. Hikari had never been much of a J-pop follower... or was it J-rock, but she still found it an enjoyable song. Deleberating for a while, she found it to be a bit of both, and decided not to trouble herself further. By the time she had figured out the answer, being obviously that her brain wasn't made to handle quandaries and paradoxes like this, the song was ending; so she expressed her appreciation by applauding the ecstatically grinning vocalist.  
  
"That's good, I like it." She nodded, "Ano... That was a bit of a leap you did there at the beginning though, Shindou-san. Please don't try it on stage, you you may find yourself at the mercy of the fans." His suddenly pained face told her all she needed to know, and another giggle popped out unsuccessfully squashed. Her eyes twinkling, she followed up with her 'critique' as per request. "You've got a wonderful voice Shindou- san, I'm jealous." She said winking a little, "I have tried to sing, and quickly found that most keys are foreign to me. You have a good grasp of most everything melody-wise," She tapped her ear slightly, the tip of her index finger lightly touching the tip of it as she continued, "since I have played the cello for most of my life, my ear is very sensitive to pitch. I have nothing sour to report, and that's very good; normally I'll wince a few times." She chuckled again, as the now tickled pink Shuichi nodded an affirmative and went to pester Sakano-san about the new lyrics he had written. Seeing the producer in tears in the corner, he looked rather flustered. However, Hikari has already shifted her golden brown gaze upon another member of the group.  
  
The cellist inclined her head slightly, noting the general aura of good will about the bassist, who was now again running his thumb gently across the banded metal that had sung for him, its pitches now dulled with the loss of electricity. Red hair spilled over his shoulders as he leant foreward to examine a fingering. Before long, he noticed her attention, as one is apt to do when one is being scrutinized. A small smile flickered across her face, like the light on a dying bulb whos filiment is just about to shatter.  
  
"You are... Nakano-san, right?" At his nod, Hikari crossed her arms, and leaned forward a bit her hair slipping across her shoulders to coil into her lap. She rested her elbows on her knees and bit her lip thoughtfully. "How long have you been playing?" She had already formed her own guesses, but asked anyway, incase there were things she hadn't taken into account. Before he could answer, Shuichi, after finishing his mini- conference with the producer in time to hear the question, flew across the room.  
  
"Forever!" He called, before slamming into the wall. The wall, who had been waiting for this since he leaped at the microphone, took advantage of this momentary lapse in his defenses to stand perfectly still and be a flat surface, which it thought was quite a daring move in its case, and was particularly proud of itself. Hiro rubbed the back of his head, and shrugged a little apologetically at the chuckling lady, gesturing that he didn't remember. She pursed her lips slightly, then un did the clasp to add another two yen to the pile that was steadily growing from her mouth.  
  
"Well," she said wryly, "I'm glad your infinite practicing has paid off then. Did you write the solo you played? Wait, please disregard my last comment, I'm sure you did, because otherwise you wouldn't be as comfortable playing it as you undoubetedly are." chuckling, Hiro nodded, and resumed plucking away at the now soundless strings.  
  
"And the one behind the plastic." She smiled again, realizing with surprise that she had been smiling a lot more since she met up with Shindou- san, and mentally scratched her head; no marks that way, you see. "You are Suguru-san?" the one in question nodded curtly, his dark jade hair bouncing slightly to ghost the motion just made by the keyboardist, and went back to comparing the two screens. "I've never heard the song unmixed, so I wouldn't know what to say, but I can tell you aren't a stranger to doing that type of thing. It sounds quite professional, and I'd not mind you mixing a few of mine..." She winced, suddenly reminded of something, and rubbed the back of her head in embarassment, "If I were still affiliated with a company, that is." He nodded again, though not as sharply, and she turned her attention to the others.  
  
"I'm sure K-san is a great shot," she received surround sound approval to that, as the aforementioned manager fixed them all with the barrel of his rifle in turn, "and he must be a good producer to get you all the publicity you have... though I'm sure most of that is skill, ne?" she chuckled, and pulled her lengthy sable hair back into a tail at the nape of her neck with her hands, and then let it escape down the back of the chair. "Ano... I'm sure Sakano-san will be the world's supply of water someday, but he also must do a very good job if you have gotten this far." She brushed her hair from her face, and stood up. "Now that I've fulfilled my duty, if you would be so kind as to excuse me, I must go down to the cab company somehow and retrieve my cello." She made as if to leave, but was again stopped by the chak sound of a gun being aimed.  
  
"Wait." said K in his strange English, before continuing on in Japanese, "Sit down, please." Now, sure that she was being kept hostage by this group of people she had only just met, she turned around and sat down again. Shuichi pointed at her,  
  
"We played our song for you, just like I said. Now Yamishika-san..." A puppy suited Shuichi wagged his tail almost irresistibly cutely. "Play for us!"  
  
Almost irresistible.  
  
"Maa... I'm flattered, really," she said, "but I don't have my cello. I can't really play for you, can I." Inukoro Shuichi sighed, looking crushed as the child again played roulette with his emotions. It landed on puppy-eyed and pathetic and, sadly, won big money. "Aa... Gomen." the poor cellist sighed, immediately taken in by Shuichi's pathetic expression, "Would you guys give me a ride down to the cab company?"  
  
So it was decided, and the whole lot of them lumped into the van in a mass of performers, and set off to the company where, hopefully, Hikari's cello was waiting for them.  
  
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"Is this it, Yamishika-san?" called the keyboardist, from behind one of the cabs. He emerged a moment later, pulling the wonderful, and sorely missed lump behind him. The owner of the treasure looked up, and gasped with abject joy. She all but skipped over to him, golden flecked eyes alight with an amber shade.  
  
"Suguru-san! You've found it!" She che cried, screeching to a halt before the slightly perplexed boy, before bowing politely, as if in apology for her earlier actions. "Thank you." The cello was offered, and she slung it across her back, the worn strap squeaking ecstatically to find that its mistress had returned to it. Fujisaki scratched his head, and then tilted it to the side a bit.  
  
"Ano... no problem?" He replied to the cellist, who was pretty much deaf to the world now. She seemed to be talking to the case, and strangely enough, it squeaked and pounded slightly, as if returning her attention. Fujisaki raised an eyebrow, determined to believe with his obstinate sense that inanimate objects did not talk.  
  
"All right!" yelled Shuichi, from the hood of one of the cabs. "We've found Yamashika-san's cello! Back to the studio!" Nakano, after realizing that the prize was won, had already begun to move back toward the van, opening the door to tell the waiting K and Sakano that the cellist's luck was still holding fast.  
  
"You there!" called a cab driver, from the enterance to the company, staring at the celebrity that had arranged himself on the vehicle, "Get off of the cab!" wasting no time, the wine haired wonder lept off the hood with all the grace and fluidity of a feline, and was on his way to the van, without another look back, except for a few to see if everyone was still following. The rest soon followed, at Shuichi's constant prodding, and the whole lot of them lumped into the van in a jumbling mass of performers and instruments, and set off for the studio.  
  
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Notes: I was originally going to include the beginning of chapter four into this, but it got too damned long, and I created a new chapter instead. ^_^()  
  
Remember...  
  
Reviews are (more than) welcome, and flames will be used to roast marshmellows for the starving cast.  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	4. Steel Dream

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter IV - Steel Dream  
  
Your Dreams Are Yours Not Mine  
  
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Back at the NG building, Hikari settled herself into the chair that seemed to have become her chair, fingers running gently over the golden brown wood of her cello, checking for any minute damage that might have occured while it was away from her care. After a few minutes, she was finally satisfied, and she tightened the bow, setting it lightly on the yet lifeless metal strings.  
  
"Now, minna-san, what should I play?" the newly recovered cellist said, eyes gleaming with an internal flame that seemed to light her normally unremarkable eyes, aside from the gold flecks, from within. They now glowed a shade of warm, dark amber. "Should I play something light, or something melancholy?" There was silence in the room, as if everyone was rolling the pollibility around in their mouths as one eats a candy so hard it may break teeth if bitten. A slight cough from the door immediately procured the attention of all; the president stood there, leaning gently against the doorframe.  
  
"I had heard rumours of a group running amok in the building, first without a cello, then with a cello. I knew with all that had been going on lately, it must be Bad Luck." Seguchi sighed, and then shifted his hat a little. "Make it something melancholy, please." He requested, fastidiously examining the stitching on the side of his glove. Truth be told, he had been on his way out, but curiosity made him look after the rogue cellist and the vibrant vocalist who seemed to have attracted another interesting aquaintance. Now he had to see if she was worth a contract with NG, so he stayed. He was in a rather low mood at the moment, and while it would have been better to hear something upbeat, he wanted stubbornly to nurse this one for a while. However, he did not yet know that the nurse was famous for prolonging life up until the point of molecular breakdown.  
  
Hikari nodded slightly, took a shallow breath, and drew her bow like a feather across the strings, letting out the intaken breath to effectively breath life into the lifeless wood and metal, making it a living thing. Under her seemingly light touch, the instrument used its newfound life to tell a story of innate suffering, and foolish yearning.  
  
It was not the raw, harsh emotions of someone who had just lost a loved one, or had a deep wish to leave the horrible troubles of life behind with a single strike, but the resigned sorrow of one who who knew their fate, and had no choice but to abide to it. While it was tones, fingerings, and measures, it was not just that; it was emotions, tides of them. The silence was golden, and naught moved but her fingers across the fingerboard, naught sounded but the song of the cello and the slight hiss of her fingers sliding across the strings. Her eyes remained closed, but when she opened them they were foreign; so unlike the eyes of the bubbling woman they had all met just before. Unnoticed, another presence made its way into the room, wide azure eyes contracted into something more serious, just like the cellist had done.  
  
Tohma barely acknowledged the new presence, for his gaze had already lifted from the stiching, which now seemed not to matter, to rest on the seemingly pusling golden wood of the instrument that sang as sweetly as a siren under the young woman's gentle hands. She was leaning over the cello, holding it in arms that trembled slightly with an emotion he recognized all too well.  
  
He was certain that if her expressive eyes were open, he would see her gaze upon the cello was as if she looked at a lover taken for lost, only to have been found in the face of all again. They had only been seperated for a few hours... she must have a special bond with it, and her music.  
  
Recalling vacantly that it was at his request that she played, and feeling in his heart and soul the wounds which still stood new and clean, though they had been carved many years hence.  
  
And she was playing for him.  
  
When the last breathy notes materialized, following the tip of her bow as it slid one last time across the strings, before fading, and finally stopping, it was if a collective breath had been let go. Things stayed like that for what seemed like an eternity, and those nearest to the cellist could see something wet glittering on her lashes. She sniffed quietly once, and then opened her eyes, still the serious sable and gold they were during her 'turn' to play. She blinked the unshed tears from her eyes, and they slowly widened again. After a few moments of staring, the presence recovered too and went to crouch by the cello, gently running its finger down the front, and peering at it. Hikari blinked, and the crouching Ryuichi blinked back, before exclaiming sorrowfully.  
  
"It died..." he said solemnly, looking sadly at the cello which now, as before, was only wood and metal without a soul.  
  
"It's not dead..." the until now silent Hikari said, "It's only sleeping." Ryuichi nodded knowledgeably and stood up, walking silently out of the room. Soon after, as if the vocalist had sucked the silence out with him, conversation struck up again like a flame that had been doused but was revived soon after. "You did say you wanted melancholy..." she said, turning to face the president, who was staring out the door. He slowly turned back to face her, something indescribable in his eyes, before coming upon a phrase.  
  
"I... have a lot of work to do at the moment," he said, seeming to fumble like one blind, "Please come see me later about the contract." With that, Seguchi Tohma departed, walking in a buisness-like fashion away from the young woman and her cello, towards the office where he would sit with his paperwork and not do a stitch of it, save one. He would sign that woman to NG even if she protested, though he doubted she would.  
  
Meanwhile, back in the studio, Fujisaki was grumbling, though for a different reason than usual.  
  
"We didn't have the sense to record? Who was in charge back there anyway?" He demanded, pointing to his station behind the plastic wall. At the half-lidded, non-plussed looks he received in stereo from his bandmates, he gathered the conclusion quickly, and nothing more was said on the subject.  
  
"Oh no, it doesn't matter." Said the cellist, who had recovered quickly, and was now waving her hand embaressedly. "I don't think you could remix something like that anyway." A quick glance told her more than all the volumes of and encyclopedia could have. That remixing wasn't the intended purpose for the recording; she tilted her head and shrugged. "Ano, Shindou-san, are you all right?" the vocalist in question nodded quickly, and looked up.  
  
"Aa. I'm fine." He replied, getting up and striking a triumphant pose, so that she wouldn't worry any longer. However, Mentally she cursed herself again; how could she make music that did these things to people? It just wasn't fair. K-san at least looked fine, he was polishing his gun quietly, looking into the almost reflective surface. Hikari twitched, and then began to chuckle under her breath. Sakano-san was slowly becoming a waterfall in the corner, but from what she'd picked out of Shindou-san's excited rambling on the way over, that was to be expected. She looked around again, and met the serious gaze of Nakano Hiroshi. She blinked a few times, and yet, strangely, his expression didn't change. Shuichi, noticing this, immediately ran over to his friend to lure him out of his shell like state with a piece of Strawberry pocky.  
  
"Maybe, I shouldn't play that anymore." the cellist mumbled under her breath, un-preparing the cello and stowing it away safely in its case. Unfortunately for her, everyone's ears seemed to pick that up, and she got several threatening glares and one gun barrel pointed in her direction. Holding her hands up in defeat, she laughed. "Ah, I see. I concede defeat, most worthy of adversaries." Fortunately for her, at that point, a once more bouncy Ryuichi poked his grinning face into the room, obviously on buisness of the utmost gravity.  
  
"I brought tickets for everyone, na no da!" he caroled, presenting everyone with them as if they were slips of paper. Special slips of paper, but slips of paper nevertheless.  
  
"Ah, Sakuma-san!" Shuichi exclaimed, "Are these concert tickets?" The Kumagoro carrying one nodded fervently,  
  
"Now that I've given you all tickets, you had better come!" He admonished, waving a finger at each member in the room save Hikari, he seemed intent on meeting her gaze, as if worried about something.  
  
Finally, with a 'Bye bye, na no da!' he jumped out, humming joyfully as he left. Hikari looked as if she had been shot with a paralyzing dart by one of K-san's guns. That is to say, she was relatively stunned. Everyone else, however, was fine.  
  
"...Does he do that often?" she inquired, scrutinizing the ticket she now held in her hand.  
  
"Aa. Most of the time." Shuichi agreed, holding up the ticket before grinning ecstatically, "We're all going to a Nittle Grasper concert tonight!" He immediately began dancing, clapping his hands to an imaginary beat, though careful to keep the ticket safe. Hikari ruefully thought of her nice, relatively sane life; then compared it to the life she knew she'd soon be living somehow, and a grin snuck onto her face.  
  
"All right, that sounds wonderful." she said, setting her cello down carefully, where it lay on its side. Were it a cat, it would be sleeping contentedly, yet since it was not, it was only a golden cello, lying on its side. "Shall I just leave this here, will we be returning?" the manager looked up from polishing his gun, and shook his head.  
  
"Oh no," K said in his heavily accented English, "We won't be coming back. You should bring it along, Yamashika-san." Hikari nodded, and slung the cello in its awkward case across her back. As they all exited, her brow knotted with puzzlement. Somehow, it didn't seem right that they call her 'Yamashika-san,' shrugging, she closed the door behind Hiro after he hit the lights.  
  
As before, the group of performers and an instrument were glopped into the van, with just as little success. However, they all managed to fit and the trip began, stopping first at the hotel to get Hikari some shoes...  
  
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Since the concert wasn't for quite a wihile yet, it became the general consensus among the crew of the good ship Bad Luck and the stowaway on board that it might be a good idea to get something to eat first. Since no one but Hikari with her trenchcoat had any sort of disguise at all, they decided on some type of fast food. After making another group decision, namely that K-san should not be allowed to order, because the cashiers might think it a stick up and give him money by mistake, a grumbling Fujisaki was sent to collect the orders.  
  
After the orders were brought back, Sakano-san dropped the van into orbit around the building the concert was to be held in while the food was ingested. As sometimes happens, the food ceased to exist after a matter of minutes, and the concert still wasn't near starting; there was no need for the van to pull out of orbit just yet, a topic of conversation was in order. Sooner or later, it didn't really matter which, the topic inevitably swung toward Hikari's reason for existing in this situation.  
  
"Well," she said, "I'll try and make this quick, because Shindou-san has already heard it before.  
  
In short, I had just severed my contract with SoundSoft. I walked out of the building, grabbed a cab, and rode back to the hotel I'm staying in currently. When I got out, I realized that I had left my cello in the trunk. So I ran for a few blocks after the cab, and stopped when I knew I couldn't chase it any farther. Yuki-san happened to drive up, and picked me up, mistaking me for his sister," At that, there were a few whispered conversations, and it was agreed that she did indeed look enough like Mika to be mistaken for her at a distance. "By the time he realized that I wasn't who he thought I was, we were already at his place, so he invited me up for some tea. Shortly thereafter I met Shindou-san, and was consequently dragged down to NG." She raised her shoulders, indicating the end of her motley tale, and then smiled slightly. "I'm quite glad it all happened, really." she nodded, and went back to sipping at the large soda she always seemed to order, but never seemed to finish.  
  
"It all seems like just a contrivance of fate though, doesn't it?" Fujisaki commented, referring to the large amount of what seemed to be coincidences in the cellist's story.  
  
"I don't believe in coincidences." Hiro pitched in, leaning back in the seat and pushing the curtain aside to have a look outside the van at the sun which was setting relatively quickly. "Some things are just meant to happen, that's all." Though he meant it to sound serious, somehow thew information was not taken the way he had meant it to be. Hikari made an odd noise as she almost sneezed soda into the front seats, and Shuichi had to pound her on the back several times before she was able to breathe again.  
  
"Are you okay?" he asked, when she was finally able to breathe again, and she waved a hand, indicating that he shouldn't worry about it.  
  
"You mean that all this was destined to happen? Somehow I don't think the gods are that petty." she chuckled.  
  
"Well, you just happened to meet Shindou-kun on the day you severed your contract with SoundSoft, isn't that more than a coincidence?" asked Sakano-san seriously from the front seat.  
  
"I believe it was just my good luck." she drawled wryly, after finally finishing the soda.  
  
"Don't worry," Shuichi crowed, "Now that you're with us, you can be sure that'll never happen again." Hikari, though she had a fairly good idea of what the reason was, indulged the vibrantly coloured vocalist.  
  
"Why?"  
  
Shuichi struck a pose, K-san laughed maniacally, Sakano-san almost hit another car, Hiro coughed in the background once, as if trying to stifle a laugh, and Fujisaki looked non-plussed.  
  
"Because we're Bad Luck!"  
  
  
  
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Notes: Argh. Bad jokes, taking over, system. @.x Well, I suppose it's something one would expect to issue from Shu-kun's mouth, ne?  
  
I have so many cute WAFF lines to use later, it's making me melt from within. n.n  
  
Remember...  
  
Reviews are (more than) welcome, and flames will be used to roast marshmellows for the starving cast.  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
Oh, and the subscript and title come courtesy of Cirque du Soleil. If you haven't heard of it, I command you to hear of it now. It's so... kakui~i *-*  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	5. Promises, Like Pie Crusts

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter V - Promises, Like Pie Crusts  
  
Were Made to be Eaten  
  
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Wide eyed Sakuma Ryuichi stood up on stage, waving energetically to the hundreds of ecstatic fans. Or more probably, at the pink-haired fan and rival in the front row, who was waving back. Waving was an understatement, almost like to make his arm fly off and land somewhere in the next district. Hikari poked Shuichi's arm slightly, and motioned toward NG's president, at the keyboard behind Ryuichi.  
  
"How on earth does he have time for both Nittle Grasper and his work as president?" she called inquisitively over the screaming of the rabid crowd. He was about to turn and offer a guess when the person in question hit the start of the song, and Shuichi's train of thought hit a couch, crashing whatever he may have been about to say, and returning his rapt attention to the gifted vocalist on stage.  
  
Knowing that her question was not going to be answered, Hikari formed an answer of her own. 'He doesn't,' she thought, her empty, crystalline gaze, like every other person's in the stands, fixed on Ryuichi. 'He doesn't have time. All that paperwork I saw before, it must be because he's living two lives where everyone else only needs to live one. After all, how would you find time in one life to live another, when you're already living?' Soon, her mental wanderer got lost, she began to confuse herself, and her attention once more was fully focused on the performance.  
  
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was no longer Sakuma Ryuichi. Or maybe... now he was. The cue came, and he was suddenly flying by instinct; lyrics expelled from somewhere within, like a cocoon which had suddenly decided it was time to become something greater. The change hit the cellist like a few tons of feathers; it was exactly as heavy as a few tons of bricks, but... softer. This was the huge-eyed, childlike man who had touched her cello, and asked if it had died when the golden strangs of music had ceased to flow from its veins? Somehow, somewhere, she believed it, and soon began to be aware of the music that was blasting and pulsing around them. Again, as before, she didn't know she was keeping the beat personally until Hiro put his hand gently on the shorter woman's head in an effort to keep her from bouncing incessantly. However, after a few moments, she was doing it again; Hikari was soon given up as a lost cause.  
  
Even the normally sedate Fujisaki was tapping a foot, with the hint of a smile on his normally serious face. Shuichi on the other hand, was watching all this with a completely blank and serious expression. Even after so many times, hearing Sakuma-san sing was a deterring blow to his reality that he could never seem to ward against, no matter how many times he heard. Within himself, he began to feel very small, a cat in a world of people with clunking feet that always seemed to land on his poor and abused tail. Somehow, the pink-haired vocalist always found himself fighting a private internal war with his friend, in which he was always a casualty, no matter how hard he tried not to be.  
  
To Shuichi, Sakuma-san seemed to sing silently on stage, almost as if he were in a bubble away from the threads of rhythm, weaving themselves into a tapestry of sound before his violet eyes. It was so tangible that he almost raised his arm to feel the texture that he could feel throbbing as a beat within his enclosed mind. When it had stopped, it took him a few minutes to realize that it had done so, the only inclination being that Hiro was staring at him with a curious expression on his face, a mix between worry and recognition, and both Fujisaki and Hikari had indescribable looks on their faces.  
  
Shuichi waved weakly, still in a soundless world, trying to tell them that he was fine, but even to him his smile seemed over forced. 'What's wrong with me?' he asked mournfully to himself, letting his head dip forward ever so slightly, his wine coloured locks falling foreward to obscure his face. 'I should be happy that Sakuma-san is my friend, and that he's doing so well... and that we're doing so well. Why can't I let it go?' His mental interrogation wasn't going so well, as was expected.  
  
Hikari was still looking at him though.  
  
What did she know about him that he didn't?  
  
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Shuichi followed behind the rest of the group, his unnerving silence as he crouched within himself throwing the mood of the others into a momentary stupor. Hikari wondered silently again what could have thrown Shindou-san into such a state. Normally he was fairly bubbling, like an elixer of life merged irrevocably with seltzer water, pulling everyone into his energetic cyclone with nary a glance to see what he had left behind, always looking towards the horizons.  
  
They made their way around the side of the stage, in the general direction of the van that would end this miraculous day that seemed to have lasted forever. Day had given way to night, and the moon hung like a forever luminous orb above them, filling the sky with an almost supernatural light. Stars glowed like tiny pinprick holes in black construction paper with a light shining behind the enveloping sheet. Shuichi's feet dragged slowly, along with the passage of time, and his amethyst eyes glowed darkly behind the curtain of enveloping hair that kept his expression a precious and valuable secret. Suddenly, his foot came in contact with the smaller booted foot of another. He looked up questioningly to see the serious, dark eyes of one Yamashika Hikari looking thoughtfully at him.  
  
"It was Sakuma-san, wasn't it...?" She asked, looking up into the sky, a light cool wind whipping at her hair that was tinted ebon by the night sky. "Why do you retreat within yourself now?" she prodded further, and he idly grasped at a strand of his own hair. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down. He could see her inky boot turn on its heel, yet hesitated, as if inviting him to come walk alongside. Silently, he let himself follow the cellist, and looked up at the rest of the group who had almost reached the van. He wouldn't let himself answer her questions, because he didn't know himself what the answers were. Strange questions, and stranger answers; those were the only thing that ran about in his mind, searching everywhere in vain.  
  
She examined the ground ahead of her, black asphalt hard to distinguish from her footwear. Another gust of wind prompted her to place her hands in the pockets of her black trenchcoat, though the fabric didn't do much to keep them warm. They walked together in silence, Hikari content that she would not get an answer from Shuichi. Eventually they reached the others, but nothing was passed between them but a searching glance from Fujisaki's dark brown eyes, and upon finding nothing, that too was withdrawn. Everyone got in, arranging themselves into comfortable positions. Shuichi leant back into the seat, keeping his head down. For some reason he knew not, he was sedate. What had happened this time that he knew, yet did not know about?  
  
The engine rumbled as it started up, and Sakano pulled the van out of its space, and gently guided it towards another path.  
  
Far behind, a pair of sapphire eyes glinted in the shadows, the mind behind them pondering the same questions the woman had put to his friend. A gloved hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder, and the silent one looked up to see Tohma standing there. The keyboardist nodded slightly at the leaving van, before turning to go... Noriko was waiting.  
  
"Ryuuichi." He said, simply, the name carrying more meaning than an entire sentence would have. The famous vocalist nodded as well, and looked up at the luminous moon for a moment, before pulling a familiar stuffed bunny from his jacket, and huggingly it tightly. The light from the stars and moon glinted off the black beaded eyes of Kumagoro, and Ryuuichi understood.  
  
Then he turned to follow Seguchi Tohma.  
  
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They were back in the van, and Shuichi in his psuedo-recovered state was having a staring contest with Hiro. Unfortunately for the pink-haired participant... he was the only one participating. K-san was staring thoughtfully ahead onto the dark road, lit only by the headlights of the band's van which Sakano-san was driving, Fujisaki was looking out the window, and Hikari was thinking; again.  
  
Suddenly, a thread of an earlier conversation wound its way around her mind... and then tightened.  
  
"Ah, Shindou-san! You promised Yuki-san that you would be back early for dinner!" she blurted out suddenly, sitting up and looking at him. Shuichi blinked, was immediately declared the loser of the contest, and gaped. His inner child took a vicious kick at the swing. Several times in succession.  
  
"Shimatta!" he exclaimed, before immediately beginning to chew tearfully on a random object. "Now he'll be angry at me~!" then he gasped, and covered his mouth with his hand, beginning to chew on his palm. "I already ate dinner!" posing valiently with the inner skin of his palm locked between his teeth, he swore on his life to eat it again, and commenced goading Sakano-san. "Sakano-san, go faster, Ipromised Yuki I'd be back for dinner!"  
  
After five and a half minutes of absolute and incomparable agony, the van filled to the brim with the rant of a certain boy plus several performers and an instrument pulled up outside the building. The door slammed open and Shuichi leaped out, dragging a hapless cellist and her instrument along with him. The hapless cellist sighed, wondering if she would ever get back to her hotel room, and allowed herself to be pulled along. 'Well,' she thought, 'at least he has pulled out of his stupor.'  
  
"Don't worry Yuki!" he called down the hall, as he fumbled for his key. He could hear footsteps on the other side of the door and he quickly pulled the key from the lock, determined to glomp the unwary writer into whatever wall was nearest.  
  
The door opened with a click, and before the opener could say anything, he found himself pinned to the floor by an armful of Shuichi.  
  
"Yuuuuu-ki!" Thud went two bodies onto the floor. Hikari raised an eyebrow, and stopped herself willfully from scratching her head.  
  
"Shindou-san... I don't believe that's Yuki-san." For indeed, it wasn't. The overly genki vocalist had nearly concussed the indended receiver's brother. Shuichi blinked several times, and then double-taked.  
  
"If this isn't Yuki... then... Where's Yuki!" Upon quickly reaching this super-important statement, he quickly super-deformed and began to search the house, abandoning the knocked out Tatsuha. Hikari gently set her cello down in the corner, sighed, and then reconciled herself to the task of making sure this case of mistaken identity was solved. She sat down to one side of the, fallen man, raied an eyebrow, and then waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
Meanwhile, Shuichi was chewing off his nails as fast as he could grow them, which was pretty slow. He had checked every room, but there was no sign of his lover anywhere. Now he all but 'knew' Yuki was angry with him.  
  
The folorn vocalist curled up tightly on the couch, like a tired dog waiting for its master to come home. He traced little circles on the black leather, and as if from far away could hear the slight tapping noise as Hikari undoubetedly patted Tatsuha's hand to try and wake him up.  
  
Finally, stirred and sat up with a groan. Tatsuha reached up to feel the back of his head, and winced when his fingers came in contact with a rather large, and uninvited, bump. His sight was a little fuzzy from his contact with the floor, and felt himself being supported by another person. Wincing, he turned his head slightly, feeling uninclined to move at all. Surprised, and with his unclear vision, he saw his sister helping him up.  
  
"Mika?" He asked groggily, he squinted at her, his vision slowly returning. The cellist chuckled. She would have to meet this Mika person everyone kept mistaking her for. Tatsuha shook his head a little, wincing as he did so. "You shrunk..." He said, looking confused as Hikari ushered him over to a chair in the kitchen, pulling it out. He sat down, and rubbed his head. "What happened?"  
  
"Shindou-san thought you were Yuki-san, and he pounced you into the floor." she replied, hunting through the cuboards for a teapot and some cups. She was unfamiliar with the kitchen, and so it took her almost ten minutes to find the items she had wanted. She then set about preparing some tea. During these minutes, the lumped man had figured out that she wasn't his sister. After all, she had called his aniki 'Yuki-san.' Last he'd checked, no one he knew save Ayaka-ojousama called his brother that; and this was definitely not Ayaka. Of course, the question on everyone's mind today was... who was she?  
  
A cup of tea was slid into his field of vision, and he looked up to see that this strange young woman had indeed made tea. He sipped the bitter liquid with a grimace. Though it dulled the throbbing at the back of his head, it tasted quite bitter. He decided it was medicinal, and rather than prolonging such punishment, he gulped the rest of the scalding tea down, causing a number of unpleasant things to happen. First, his throat was burning now, to say nothing of his mouth. Second, his head still hurt, even though it was a little duller than before.  
  
"I must take the liberty of apologizing on behalf of Shindou-san." she said formally, pouring herself a cup of the tea and sliding into the seat across the table from the obsidian haired younger brother. "However, we were expecting Yuki-san to be home. Shundou-san was worried because he had promised to come home early, and we went out to a Nittle Grasper concert instead...?" She trailed off as a light suddenly burst into being behind Tatsuha's eyes.  
  
"A... Nittle Grasper concert?" He said, standing up quickly, slamming his hands into the table hard enough to make the teacups rattle against their china saucers.  
  
"Aa..." she nodded, seeming to shrink even further back into the chair, holding the bitter tea protectively against her chest.  
  
"That's the reason I'm here, I was supposed to go to that concert! When I went to get a ticket, they were all sold out!" He continued voice escalating to almost a yell, before peering at the now smaller woman in the black trenchcoat before him. "How did you get your tickets? Did you buy them a week early!"  
  
"N-no... We just got them a few hours before the concert." Hikari said, shaking her head at the raving Tatsuha, who stared at her in disbelief.  
  
"How on earth did you do that? I went almost twelve hours before the concert to get a ticket, and they were all sold out then!" He said, half sobbing.  
  
"Anou... Sakuma-san gave them to us." She said, guardedly. He stared at her.  
  
And stared.  
  
And stared.  
  
Hikari had begun to believe that she had killed him, when suddenly he began to flail.  
  
"Ryuichi gave you the tickets?" He gaped in disbelief. His head took the opportunity of his abject disbelief to begin to throb again, worse than before. He sat down quickly, and rubbed the back of his head. He stood up shakily again, and began to move towards the enterence to the kitchen. Hikari looked questioningly at him, but he just shook his head slightly.  
  
"Matte," she said, "What about Yuki-san?" Tatsuha thought for a moment, and then nodded slowly.  
  
"After I... couldn't get a ticket. I came back here, since this was closer than home for me. I thought that I might be able to watch the concert on televi, and I got here just as he was leaving." He smirked, and ran a hand through his coal-black hair, wincing involuntarily when his fingers encountered the bump. "He didn't pay much attention to me, but he did say something about going out to get a prescription." He frowned slightly. "However, that was over five hours ago." question answered, Tatsuha left the kitchen for some place to collapse and rest his aching head.  
  
Hikari's brow furrowed slightly at the answer she received...  
  
Five hours?  
  
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Notes: Eee. It was getting a little long, so I stopped at this idea instead of the next one.  
  
For the next one, you're going to have to read the next chapter, which will be typed as soon as I goad myself into doing it.  
  
Remember...  
  
Reviews are (more than) welcome, and flames will be used to roast marshmellows for the starving cast.  
  
Arigatou gozaimasu to those of you who did review. n.n; I wouldn't continue to post chapters if people didn't review them ever so often, thanks for your support.  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari- chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	6. Prescription Drugs

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter VI - Prescription Drugs  
  
And Their Non-Prescription Brethren...  
  
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Five hours ago, Yuki Eiri had been with his doctor. Five hours hence, he was sitting on a park bench in the dark, staring at the cityscape below. The lights of Tokyo stared back at him, glaring unnaturally, blotting out the stars closest to the horizon. It was as if the sun was perpetually rising, and yet dawn never came.  
  
It was rather ironic.  
  
Every day in the morning, the unquenchable Shuichi jolted him awake with some sort of inane blather. Yet, no matter how many times he woke to his lover's cheerful face, he still lived his life in darkness.  
  
This could be one of the reasons he was put on a stronger medication each time he went to visit the doctor. Being next to Shuichi had made him realize exactly how deep into the shadows of the night he was. The wine- haired boy had no doubt returned from whatever he had been doing all day by now, and might as well be working himself into a froth with worry about him. Worry and concern which he didn't deserve. Golden eyes closed, as if the weight of his mood had pulled his eyelids down, and he sighed, reaching into his pocket for the pack of cigarretes that he normally kept handy.  
  
Damn.  
  
There weren't any there.  
  
That plan shattered into small shards, Yuki contented himself with watching the eternal sunrise of Tokyo over the fences, thinking about other things than his growing want of a small, paper covered, filtered cyllinder. Unfortunately, the only thing he could think about was Shuichi.  
  
That made him want a cigarrette more badly then he had before. Now that he was certain that none existed in his immidiate viscinity, he sat up; then lured his legs into supporting the rest of his lithe form. Walking forward, he leaned against the fence seperating him from the rest of the gaily lit Toyko.  
  
Without looking at his watch, he hazarded that it was around two in the morning now. A cold wind swept past him, running icy fingers through his sun-kissed hair, which even now was dancing in the winds passing. Yuki sighed out into the chill air, watching uninterested as the warmth of his breath crystalized into a thin mist of vapour before dissapating.  
  
He found himself turning away from the lights of the city layed out before him, and back into the velvet darkness of the path that was always welcome, for it coated the now constant throbbing of his headache with some protection that allowed him to shove the annoying feeling away. Walking along the path, his cellphone began to ring, and he almost hissed with annoyance as the grating sound beat against his head. Instead, his hand reached into his pocket to pull the offending object out. It was better to silence the ringing for now, he could always hang up after a few seconds of 'conversation' if he liked. Yuki no longer felt obliged to talk to anyone if he wasn't interested enough, and due to reasons of his own, he was no longer interested in much of anything besides meeting deadline after deadline; which reminded him that he had not gotten any work done today.  
  
He pressed the button, and raised the phone to his ear, not giving any inclination that he was listening as he walked along.  
  
"Eiri." came the voice. Another offensive sound, he was not in the mood to be chastised by his sister for his relationship with Shuichi, or hearing anything else she might happen to say. He didn't respond, and Mika, who was used to the attitude of her otouto, proceeded to talk. "Tatsuha is at your house?" It was less of a question than a statement. She obviously knew this was so, and was calling him up for confirmation. Yuki did not dignify her with an answer, yet she continued. "I heard that there was a younger woman at your house, what are you doing with a-..." He turned off the phone, and dropped it back into his pocket.  
  
So the cellist was still there. He puffed out a bit of breath, and decided that he had better go back to the house and tell her to go back to her hotel room; his house was crowded enough with Shuichi living there. The younger boy's frame was small, yet he took up much more emotional space than anyone the writer knew. He killed a small smile before it even got close to ghosting his lips; he wasn't going home to see Shuichi, but to kick his brother and that girl out.  
  
However, contrary to his own statements, Yuki stepped just a little lighter as his feet treaded the path that would take him back to his place.  
  
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Hikari stirred her rapidly cooling tea with a small spoon, and watched intently as the tea leaves on the bottom wafted around gently with the current she was making. Shuichi, she knew, was still curled on one half of the couch, with Tatsuha lying prone on the other half. Therefore, when the door opened with a soft click, she was the first to notice. Shuichi was right behind her, and Tatsuha had not even registered for the race.  
  
The door opened with a soft creak, and a shoe scuffed quietly against the paneled floor. Shuichi immediately raised his head, amethyst eyes suddenly searching in the darkness for the person he knew instinctively was there. He slid off the couch and walked slowly to the center of the room where he could see directly down the unlit hallway. At the sight of the golden eyes in the dark, his mood lifted exponentially.  
  
"Yuki!" the wine-haired singer cried, sprinting down the hallway and flinging himself at the long-absent man, who's involuntary reaction was to step aside quickly. Shuichi crashed into the door, which had not been completely closed, and stumbled out into the hall. This did not deter him at all, and he leaped back in, forgetting to shut the door behind him. He then proceeded to glomp the correct brother, who staggered back a few paces as the weight of his lover was suddenly his duty to support. "Yuki's not angry at me for missing dinner!" Shuichi cried joyously, as if Yuki's good graces were the most important thing in the world.  
  
Yuki blinked once, and stared down at the wine-haired bundle of energy that had suddenly been forced into his grasp, and the bundle looked up, his eyes suddenly becoming glassy and reserved.  
  
"You are angry at me?" he asked pathetically, searching the taller man for some bit of information that would prove otherwise. Yuki blinked again, and without a word turned to go into the next room, where he might be able to get some work done, finally. He could almost see the younger boy deflating under the weight of his rejection, and so offered a final, almost inaudible phrase as he turned to go in.  
  
"Of course not, brat." Shuichi's expression picked itself off the floor, and pasted itself back onto his face. He made as if to go after him into the room, but the door, as if hearing Shuichi's thought, closed with a derisive noise. He signed, and turned back towards the kitchen, where the cellist was looking at him with interest, a stone cold cup of tea in her hands. Having forgotten about her up until now, as he was embarassed to think, he moved into the kitchen and took a seat scross the table from her. Sensing that the conversation was not going to pick up off the floor as easily as Shuichi's expression, Hikari set the teacup down, and began to stand up. Suddenly stifling a yawn afer realizing exactly how late it was, she was halfway out the door before he stopped her.  
  
"Machimasu, Yamashika-san." She sighed, and turned around. After this day, he was still being formal towards her. "Anou, it's really late." he said, pointing out on the clock on the wall that it was almost two thirty in the morning. "It would be rude of me to ask you to go back to your hotel at this time of night." Her eyebrow raised of its own accord, as she wondered if she was right in assuming that he was implying that she stay the night here. Shuichi noticed the slight facial twitch, and scratched his head in embarassment. "Would you like to sleep here tonight? I'm sure Yuki wouldn't mind," His face brightened slightly. "I could sleep on the floor, and you could take my spot on the couch!"  
  
Hikari chuckled, and tugged a little on the tips of her sable hair that had somehow found its way over her shoulder.  
  
"That would be rude of me, Shindou-san. I don't want to take up any more of your time and space than I already have... besides, that other person is still on the couch." she motioned towards Tatsuha, who, upon collapsing, had fallen asleep. He shook his head rather violently, pink strands of hair suddenly all over the place.  
  
"It's a big couch, you won't be in the way, I promise!" he said, rather pleadingly. Hikari's resolve, which had already shown its weakness for the vocalist's puppy-esque expressions, dissapated, and she nodded slightly.  
  
"Aa, I will stay then." she sighed, as she turned away slightly. If Shuichi had truly been a dog, his tail would have knocked over several pieces of furniture at that point. He grinned with success, but when the cellist didn't echo his expression, he tilted his head questioningly. She had taken on a serious quality, but that too proved itself to be only a mask when she turned back. "On one condition," she said, making it seem as if she had been the one renting out a space in her room. "You must stop calling me 'Yamashika-san.' Now that I have wormed my way in here enough to be allowed to sleep on the couch you must call me Hikari, ne?" He nodded with a smile in lieu of a phrase of agreement, as she left the kitchen for the half occupied couch to curl up.  
  
"Hai, Hikari-chan." He waved a goodnight as she sat on the couch, pulling off her boots and curling up, using her arm as a pillow, and her discarded trenchcoat as a makeshift blanket. She had undoubetedly decided that asking for a pillow or blanket would have been more intrusive than she had already been, and had made do with what she had. "Oyasumi." He said finally. She nodded from the couch.  
  
"Oyasumi, Shindou-san." He paused, and furrowed his brow, looking accusingly at the hypocrytical woman.  
  
"If I'm going to call you Hikari, you should call me Shuichi!" He called righteously, and without waiting for an answer from the amused cellist who was occupying his spot on the couch, he stalked into the hall and rested his fingers lightly on the doorknob that would let him into the room where Yuki was undoubetedly typing away, not wanting to be disturbed.  
  
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Shuichi took a deep breath, and then turned the knob, letting himself into the room. Yuki was indeed typing, though whether or not he wanted to be disturbed still remained to be seen. He was not graced with a glance from from the golden eyes of the man he had come in to see, but he came in anyway.  
  
"I asked Yamashika-san..." he began, then shook his head slightly as he remembered, "Chigau, Hikari-chan," he remedied, "if she'd like to stay here for the night, because it's so late." Shuichi said, hoping beyond hope that Yuki wouldn't be cross with him. The object of his attention didn't flinch a bit as he turned to look up at the wine-haired boy.  
  
"Hm." Yuki uttered eloquently, before turning back to his chapter, where the main character's girlfriend had just been taken. He had been thinking of a suitable way of the kidnappers to inform the main character when Shuichi had come in and interrupted his train of thought. Now, as the train pulled out of the station again, he wondered if he should have left a piece of the girl behind on the table as a weight to hold the note down, but then decided against it; too morbid.  
  
"She's sleeping on the couch." Shuichi continued, and got an eyebrown raised at him for his troubles.  
  
"Where do you propose to sleep?" queried Yuki, taking off his glasses for the moment, and leaving them on the table with a careless hand, using the thumb and middle finger of the other to run across his closed eyelids and pinch the bridge of his nose, feeling his headache, which had been aggravated by the time of staring at the irksome white background of the screen, returning with a vengance  
  
"On the floor." answered Shuichi, who was sitting on the floor by the desk. The wine-haired singer crawled across the floor, and rested his head on Yuki's knee, sighing as he did so. Unconciously, the writer's free hand came down ro rest on the younger boy's head, silently admiring the way his lover's unnaturally coloured hair slid easily between his fingers. Shuichi stifled a yawn from his comfortable position, and his eyes slowly closed until he could only half see out of them.  
  
Yuki soon realized that he had not accomplished any of the things he had come home to do The cellist and his brother, who he had meant to kick out, were both sleeping on the sofa; and he hadn't gotten any good writing done.  
  
Looking down at Shuichi, he then had another realization; at least he had accomplished one of his tasks.  
  
Pretty soon, all variables considered, the comfortable position became a mite too comfortable, and exausted from his long day, Shuichi was lost to the waking world. Upon feeling the boy's body relax, Yuki sighed. 'On the floor indeed.' he thought wryly, unwilling to wake the peaceful Shuichi from his slumber. He reached out a hand, and turned off the laptop screen, his eyes passing across the bottle of pills for his headache. He began to reach for them, and then stopped, golden eyes looking down at the boy who's head was stationed quite comfortably on his knee.  
  
Yuki pulled his hand back, and sat back in the chair. He could feel his leg falling asleep, but didn't care much. In spite of his earlier nap, he found himself getting a little tired, especially upon watching Shuichi fall asleep. He tilted his head back, resting it against the thankfully padded chair, and closed his eyes.  
  
Shindou Shuichi snored a little on his knee...  
  
Yuki Eiri didn't need his headache medicine.  
  
  
  
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Notes: ^_^; I think the chapter was aptly named-and subtitled, though it didn't really come into play until the end. Thanks to everyone who gave such informative reviews! I always feel so encouraged and ready to write after receiving them. I guess you could continue Nakano-san's philosophy. A carrot for a horse, a live concert for a Shuichi, and a review for a Hikari!  
  
Remember...  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	7. All That Glitters...

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter VII - All That Glitters...  
  
Gold is Soft, but Pyrite can Wound  
  
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Hikari stretched languidly under the dubious covering of her trenchcoat, the sunlight lancing through the uncovered windows to fall across her unprotected eyelids. Muzzily the cellist wondered if she had knocked her pillow off the hotel bed, and lowered her un-occupied arm to the floor to grope around for it. Her hand met only wood paneling, and flopped around for a while like a landed fish trying to locate the elusive feather stuffed case. Giving up after a while, she pulled it back, snuggling into the arm she had been using as a pillow.  
  
Footsteps padded quietly across the floor, and suddenly there was pressure near her feet. It seemed as if her bed was inverting itself, and she stretched out a probing foot to see if there was immediate danger to her existance. The extended appendage met with something, and she poked it experimentally.  
  
It uttered a squeek, and she pulled her legs up to her chest quickly, opening her gold-flecked eyes to small slits, to see if something was living in the inverted hole in her bed. The sun blinded her for a moment, but her vision soon returned. Her eyes slid across to the area her feet shoud be occuping, and was surprised to see that she wasn't in her hotel after all. The memory came flooding back, and with chagrin she realized that she had just kicked her host.  
  
Amethyst eyes blinked back at her from under wine-coloured hair, greeting the half-concious cellist with a smile. She chuckled for a moment, and then let her head fall back onto her arm, not quite willing to give up her peaceful slumber quite yet. She heard a click, and then the sparkle of static as Shuichi undoubetedly turned the televi on with a remote that he had grabbed from the table.  
  
The morning news was on, and Hikari groaned softly, willing her ears to shut out the noise so that she could sleep. However, as Shuichi had said before, her luck was slowly dissapearing from prolonged contact with the band, for the object of her thought had begun to shake her excitedly. She opened her eyes, and looked questioningly up at him.  
  
"Ah, Hikari-chan!" he cried excitedly, pointing towards the screen. Her eyes listlessly followed the pointing finger, and rested on the screen, where a very familiar person stared lifelessly back at her. "You're on TV!" He plunked back on the couch to watch the news program which had gone from being white noise to something of abject interest. Hikari bounced a little inadvertantly as Shuichi thudded back onto the couch, and then propped herself up with an elbow to watch the black box with her on it, as the anchors began their customary, energetic, morning speech.  
  
"Today's Morning Time features an interesting news story! A statement from the president of SoundSoft Tokyo!" the female anchor was saying. "It was just released that Yamishika Hikari-san, the popular new soloist, severed her contract just yesterday morning with the famous company," The other anchor continued cheerfully, as if talking about someone who didn't actually exist.  
  
The popular new soloist, who was up until that moment sleeping on someone else's couch under a trenchcoat, groaned, crossing her eyes, and buried her face in her arm. The learhter creaked in protest as she tried to bury into it, not wanting to hear the story. Shuichi was raptly watching the collection of pixels on the screen as they unfolded the story; what they knew of it at least.  
  
"The president is at a press conference now, but Yamashika Hikari-san has not been able to be contacted. It seems that she is not answering the phone at her hotel room, or the apartment she just sold... Could this all be a large plot? Please stay with us. When we come back from the commercials, we will be at the conference room." They bowed, and the familiar strands of music floated around the room.  
  
When Hikari looked up again, a group of children were running across the screen with full bowls of ramen, trying to eat out of eachother's bowls with oversized chopsticks. Wondering disinterestedly how many takes that took to get right, she swung her legs over the side of the couch, and sighed.  
  
"...Ohayou gozaimasu, Shuichi-san." she yawned, her gold-flecked, dark brown, eyes squinting slightly as she did. Stretching like a cat, she swept herself off the couch, catching her coat deftly as it fell towards the floor. The ramen children were still running, and Shuichi looked up at her.  
  
"Ohayou, Hikari-chan." He nodded brightly. She made as if to move past the screen, but he grabbed the edge of her sleeve and blinked piteously at her. "Ne- aren't you going to stay and watch the news with me?" She glowered a bit at the screen, where a car was being coated with non-stick cooking spray, and sat down on the couch again.  
  
After watching a few more minutes of commercials, she turned towards Shuichi.  
  
"Shuichi-san?" He blinked at her from under his mane of pink hair. "Where has that other man gone off to?" Looking blank, he mouthed 'other man' to himself a few times, as if wondering who she was talking about.  
  
"Tatsuha left." said a serious voice from the enterance to the room, before heading off into the kitchen. She nodded thoughtfully.  
  
Shuichi scrambled up onto the couch, leaping off it in a single bound, and skipped off to the kitchen to bother the awakened writer for some tea. Hikari, who had stayed to watch the program at his bidding, was alone on the couch. Just as the car was burning in the oven, she stood up to escape.  
  
And was thwarted by the Morning Time theme over the speakers.  
  
Slowly, she sat down again, and watched as her erstwhile boss walked onto the platform. Hikari glowered. If looks could kill, the televi would be downstairs by now. He began to speak.  
  
"Everyone, thank you for joining me. I am Hanakara Tokuru, the president of SoundSoft Tokyo." flashbulb lights went off, as the man's image was captured on film again. "Since we can not, at this time, reach Yamashika-san to hear her thoughts on the matter, or the reasons for her departure, we can not say much about this unprecedented event. However, we can all say, at SoundSoft Tokyo, that we miss her presence very much." flashes went off again, and the cellist was reminded suddenly why she hated these conferences so much. In all her time at SoundSoft, she had absolutely refused to go to another one, after her first. The staring, the questions, and the flashbulbs. Press conferences were her own private hell.  
  
"We have no idea what made her quit." Hanakara was saying. Hikari leaned back in her seat, pointed a slim finger at the screen, and smiled wryly.  
  
"Bullshit." She intoned, crossing her legs. She turned away from the screen. "Complete and utter bullshit, Hanakara-san." Shuichi looked a little taken aback as he sat down on the couch with a cup of tea for himself, and one for his guest.  
  
"Hikari-chan!" admonished the singer, tsking a finger at her. "That's not very nice. Hanakara Tokuru-san is a very powerful man."  
  
She blew a raspberry at him, that same slim finger reaching up to pull her eyelid down. Her serious mood lifted quickly, and the leather creaked in an annoyed fashion as Yuki joined them on the couch.  
  
"Yuki!" crowed Shuichi, glomping the taller man about the waist, Hikari forgotten. The jolt of this shook the writer's arm a little, and his tea spilled on the back of the unfortunate Shuichi's neck. "Itai~iii!" He squawked indignantly, rubbing at the burned patch at the nape of his neck. He looked up to see his lover smirking at him, and then turned to face Hikari for support.  
  
Her small frame was shaking with laughter, now amber eyes sparkling with mirth. One of her hands was covering her mouth to pervent the laughter from escaping.  
  
"That's not fair," Shuichi whined, "You're all against me, even the tea!". His adamant protests were suddenly silenced by the almost electric feel of Yuki's lips brushing gently against the enhanced sensitivity of the scalded portion on his neck. His entire frame stiffened, and his amethyst eyes slid to the side, just in time to see the writer lean forward and nibble gently at his ear. He shuddered, and closed his eyes, cheeks warming with a blush that ran like ramen children across his face.  
  
"I'll make it up to you later." came a light breath into his ear, followed with a gentle puff as his lover blew into his ear, then released him.  
  
'Yuki is in a good mood', the vocalist thought absently, once he had the capacity of thought again. He didn't realize that he had toppled bonelessly back into him once released, eyes still wide. Only then did he remember that the cellist was still there.  
  
She was grinning inanely, inordinantly pleased with herself for figuring it out before Yuki went and did something interesting like that.  
  
Without even changing clothes, Shuichi was slowly becoming colour- coordinated as the colour of his face began to resemble his hair, and muttered someting inaudible, sounding suspiciously like 'They're still against me,' before attempting to support his own weight again. After a few tries he was successful, and leaned against the back of the couch instead.  
  
After a few moments, Hikari turned back to the televi, where the program was finishing up.  
  
"There will be a follow-up meeting on the findings of this conference tomorrow," said the president, gathering his notes into a briefcase, as if he already knew what the subject of the next day's meeting would be.  
  
Flashbulbs.  
  
"Hold on a moment, president!" called a reporter from the front row. Obediantly, Hanakara stopped for a moment, turning to face the last question of the day. "If you don't mind me asking... why all this fuss about a single cellist?"  
  
Hikari sighed, rubbing her head. The president was silent for a moment, before leaning forward, resting his palms flat on the table.  
  
"Have you ever heard Yamashika-san play?" The flustered pressman was forced to say that he hadn't, and he chuckled. "You have your answer. I didn't even have to answer that one."  
  
He looked towards the camera, almost seeming to know the cellist was on the other side of the glass, watching intently. "She'll be playing for SoundSoft soon again... Very soon. I'd expect sometime tonight. Then you'll have your chance, sir."  
  
Flashbulbs.  
  
He refused to answer any follow up questions, and strolled jauntily off the screen. The Morning Time anchors were in the middle of their summing up when Hikari suddenly stood up, silently, and pulled on her trenchcoat. Her face was slightly disturbed, as her mind ran over what Shuichi-san had said earlier.  
  
  
  
"Hikari-chan!" admonished the singer, tsking a finger at her. "That's not very nice. Hanakara Tokuru-san is a very powerful man."  
  
  
  
"Ah, Hikari-chan, where are you going?" queried Shuichi, blinking slightly with surprise.  
  
"NG." She replied, slipping on her boots, and standing up. "I want to see Seguchi-san about that contract offer as soon as possible." Yuki nodded thoughtfully, then stood up.  
  
"...I'll drive you there." It wasn't a question, nor an offer. Recognising this, Hikari nodded, and looked at Shuichi.  
  
"What about you, Shuichi-san? Don't you have practice today?"  
  
"Aa." He nodded, "At one." hazarding a quick glance at the clock, he saw that it was almost twelve thirty now. He blinked. He had woken up at seven, with his head on Yuki's knee. He had been quite surprised to see that the writer had still been asleep. While his position was comfortable, he decided not to push his luck, and had come out to see if Hikari was awake. Tatsuha had already been up, and, to Shuichi's embrassment, was covered in an all-knowing smirk when the vocalist emerged from his aniki's room in the morning.  
  
He had left, having no reason to stay, and then the genki boy had gone to watch the morning news, waking up their guest in the process.  
  
It was already twenve thirty?  
  
His blank expression was not an asset to the current conversation, so he shook his head to disloge it, and grinned.  
  
"All right! Let's go." Shuichi cried, and grabbed his coat, pulling it on in one swift movement. It seems that the movement was too swift, for a moment later, Hikari had pulled off his coat and turned it rightside out for him. Without saying anything about it, he nodded, and then set off for the car, Hikari and Yuki behind him.  
  
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"Seguchi-san," called the cellist from the door to his office. Tohma nodded to himself. After seeing that conference, had he been her, he would have done the same. Acknowledging her with a nod, she came in. With a slight smile, he realized that she was now wearing shoes.  
  
And the same clothes as yesterday.  
  
Shuichi must have invited her to spend the night.  
  
"What is it, Yamashika-san?" He asked, already beginning to search through the papers on his desk for the forms that he needed.  
  
"I was wondering if that contract offer still stood." she asked, unconciously pulling her lengthy hair from the back of her coat, where it had lodged itself.  
  
"Of course," Tohma said, deft fingers finding the papers he had been searching for just a moment earlier. He pulled them to the front of the desk, selected one of his better pens from the holder on the surface of his desk, and set it down on top of the forms. "Please take as long as you need to look them over, Yamashika-san." She nodded, and lifted the papers from his desk, careful not to disturb the pen.  
  
She bit her fingernail slightly as she read carefully through the entire content of the form. Nodding slightly.  
  
"This is a two-year contract, is it not, Seguchi-san?" she queried, having finished the slips. He nodded slightly. "You place a lot of trust in me. I just recently severed my contract with SoundSoft. How can you be so quick to know that I won't do the same to you?"  
  
"Maa, Yamashika-san." he sighed, his intense green eyes peered up at her, as he clasped his hands, resting his chin on them, and his elbows in turn on the desk in front of him. He knew she wasn't expecting a serious answer, not at this point anyway. He'd tell her the real reason soon enough, but for now... "I'm sure you know K-san." He closed his eyes, reason implied. "I am willing to bet he knows you as well."  
  
She chuckled. That was good. It seems his stalling technique had been recognised for what it was, but she was not going to press for answers. He could hear the scratch of the pen as she signed the contract that bound her musical proceeds to NG. He nodded with catlike satisfaction, and took the important document back.  
  
"Broken and signed in the space of two days. I'm a two-timer." She sighed, shaking her head, and turned to walk out. She must have been at NG for the entire day, watching Bad Luck practice; he'd seen her in the hall. It was dark out now, and what with Tokuru's position...  
  
"Yamashika-san... Be careful, ne?" He asked softly. She heard him.  
  
But did not stop.  
  
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She walked out of the building into the hazily lit streets of Tokyo, and shivered. Night's velvet blanket was the coverlet for a bed of nails tonight. Even the cellist could sense the tension. Shuichi was still inside practicing. She had told him that she was going to walk back to her hotel room, and thanked him for the couch.  
  
"Na, Hikari-chan; It must be really lonely back at your hotel, right?" he had asked.  
  
"...I suppose. Why?" She had tilted her head at the singer, who was tapping his fingers together at a steady rate.  
  
"Anou... do you want to come and stay with us? I'll walk back with you, just wait for a little longer, okay?" She had nodded.  
  
"Aa.. Arigatou, Shuichi-san. I'm going back to the hotel now to sign out and pick up my things." With that, she pulled on her coat, and made her way out of the building.  
  
The area was normally bustling, somehow it was different today. The lighting, instead of endearingly faulty, was sinister. A single light fizzled beside her, fading in and out like some sort of spectre.  
  
She knew the way to her hotel quite well, but somehow she kept waiting near the NG building as if afraid to be lost. She started to walk slowly away from the building, but for only a moment. It was the kind of night that was just cold enough to make you shiver, the deer of an indian summer baring their fangs in promise for the lions and beasts to come bursting from their hides.  
  
She looked behind her again.  
  
Nothing.  
  
She shivered slightly, and dug her hands into her pockets again, walking a little faster. The fine hairs at the back of her neck were raising of their own accord. This time, she shuddered, hating when they did that.  
  
Thay were always right.  
  
After a few minutes, she had regained her calm. However, no sooner had she realized that nothing was going to happen, fate suddenly became malicious.  
  
"Good evening, Yamashika-san." A voice from behind her. Damn, she had been caught, and by him, none the less. His voice hadn't lost any of its oiled quality that made him so successful with the press; and so unsuccessful with her. "I wonder what my poor cellist is doing out here by herself, in the middle of the night, near the NG building, hmm?" She whipped around, and swore to herself. There, under the fizzling light, stood President Hanakara Tokuru of SoundSoft Tokyo. Back to the wall, she glowered at the man in front of her, her normally soft brown eyes hard as rock, the gold glittering with anger.  
  
"I'm not your cellist. Not anymore." She muttered, backing away slightly. He simply smirked. Now she wasn't just angry, she felt fear seeping in like cold mist into her numbing mind. When he smirks like that, he's already got what he wants.  
  
"Sign with someone else, did you? I'm afraid I can't have that. You see, you're worth millions of yen to me." He stepped forward, one hand latching onto her shoulder in a deceptively weak manner. It gave the guise of friendship, yet steel lurked beneath the surface.  
  
"Hanakara-san, I told you , I won't play-" she was suddenly cut off as she was slammed to the wall by the taller man, his hand bruising her shoulder painfully. She winced, and tried to twist away from his grip.  
  
Then he shifted it, catching her throat in a viselike grip.  
  
"Oh, you will. You will play, Yamashika-san." Her hands flew involuntarily to her throat. She was not a weak woman, but she could not dislodge her grip. He tightened his grip automatically, and the struggling cellist ceaced to struggle, uttering a weak curse before slumping against the wall, her vision fading to black.  
  
  
  
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Notes: It seems that everyone has problems! Yuki has his mysterious headache which still has to be elaborated on, and what's with Hikari and this producer? Search me, I don't know until I write the next chapter.  
  
o.o;; One more time now,  
  
Please review for me?  
  
Remember...  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


	8. Hubris and Ate

Drifting Souls  
  
a Gravitation fic by  
  
Mitsukai  
  
'Souls are strange beings. The move where they will and are yet confined within the contours of the body. Greeks thought the body the temple of the soul, where it dwelt freely. During the middle ages, it was thought that the body was the prison of the soul. It is hard to tell which is correct, in this day in age, though it seems to be elements of both. Yet when bouncing around on the pinball board of life and existence, certain souls find and attract others. There is no pattern in these kindred souls, perhaps they belong to man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, human and animal; each attraction and bonding is a special thing. In strange instances when a group of souls are brought together by one...  
  
It is called Gravitation.'  
  
  
  
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Chapter VIII - Hubris and AtÃ©  
  
As Well As the Nemesis That Invariably Follows Both  
  
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Shindou Shuichi emerged from the NG building several hours after he had planned to leave. Wincing, he reached a hand up to the back of his neck and massaged it gently, the muscles tense from hours upon hours of typing lyrics over and over until they were satisfactory in the hawk-like, ice blue eyes of his manager, K. When they had been read over silently, and were met with a wide grin instead of the foreboding chak of a gun being readied, he was free to go. Unfortunately, it was now the middle of the night.  
  
The wind blew peevishly, and with that one breath a fine ice gathered along the minute hairs on his back of his neck, causing them to stand on end in protest. The vocalist shivered unconciously. He should have worn a heavier jacket than his delightfully bright orange windbreaker today. Then again, he hadn't had any idea it would take this long. Forcing his wine coloured head into the wind, he stomped purposefully in the general direction of Yuki's residence, hoping that there would be no cause for him to look up.  
  
Winter was slowly and invariable coming, he decided, as another blast of wind ruffled through his baby-fine hair, causing his scalp to prickle in annoyance, no doubt wondering why Shuichi was out in this weather instead of curled up at home on the couch. It was a good question, yet as of now unanswerable, for the vocalist himself didn't know.  
  
He put a bit more energy into his steps, pressing forward through the crossly gusting wind. While his body stepped automatically, too numbed by the sudden frost that seeped malevolently through the thin fabric of his windbreaker to do much else, his thoughts wandered to different, warmer places. 'I wonder,' he thought, 'if Yuki'll remember what he said earlier.' The slow flush that creeped up into his face warmed his cheeks slightly; they tingled with little pin and needle pricks as the cold fought valiently for its place. Finally the cold surrendered, and Shuichi pressed his palms to his cheeks, leeching a little of the warm army into his hands to battle the little frost dragons that were incessantly nipping at his fingers.  
  
Finally, when even the heat of his face had fought a losing battle, he made it back to the dubious shelter of the apartment. His nibbled fingers fumbled for the icy, metal key in his pocket, and found it with only a bit of trouble. It grated against the edges of the lock, as the cold-clumsy Shuichi attempted to insert it correctly. He grumbled, and finally drove it home, turning the icy thing and letting himself into the warmer hallway of the apartment complex. He sighed, and stood still for a moment, taking the key from the door, and cringing as its now foreign temperature contacted his slowly warming appendage. Slipping it into his pocket, he rubbed his hand futily on the slippery surface of his jacket, and made his way to the elevator.  
  
Shuichi stepped out a few floors up, waiting for the doors to close before shuffling to the door of the apartment, where another key was fumbled out of his pocket, and inserted successfully into the lock, whereupon it was turned, and granted him access to the apartment.  
  
The door creaked as he let himself in, and the pink-haired boy looked around silently, before closing the door behind him, and venturing farther in.  
  
"Yuki...?" He called quietly, peering into the kitchen. The light was on, but no one seemed to be in residence. "Hikari-chan?" He wondered, padding across the wooden floor to peek into the living area. When nobody answered, he scratched his head, blinking in innocent surprise. "There's nobody here."  
  
The cellist being gone he could understand, she had said she was going back to the hotel to get her things. Why it was taking her so long, he didn't know, but Yuki; Yuki should be here.  
  
Shuichi planted a fist in his hand with a crack of flesh against flesh, and amiably watched it grow.  
  
"I know, maybe Yuki is asleep." he concluded, "I bet he was working all day." So saying, he walked out of the living room, and towards the bedroom, pausing a moment before opening the door.  
  
He was so focused and intent on being quiet so as not to wake his sleeping lover, that he didn't notice the door to the study swing open with a soft sound of wind wisping across the floor, followed by the almost inaudible padding of feet against the same polished wood floor his own feet had just graced.  
  
Shuichi stopped his entrance into the darkened room as he began to feel the presence of someone behind him, with that almost palapable feel of Yuki-ness to it. He spun on his heel, breath escaping him the way it always did when held in the stare of those calculating golden eyes. He stood there for a moment, captured like a wild animal in the golden glow of an oncoming car, before breaking the silence with a short chuckle,  
  
"Aah, gomen Yuki, I thought you were a-..." Whatever else he had meant to say with his lips was silenced. They were his lips no longer, as the writer had taken possession of them with his own, pressing forward in that abrupt, unexplainable manner that he had in so many other things. Dimly, Shuichi could feel the tingling in his cheeks return, this time from his lover's hand sliding up to cup his cheek softly.  
  
Pulling back, Yuki frowned, gently rubbing Shuichi's cheek with the rough pad of his thumb.  
  
"You've been in the cold too long." he stated simply, dropping his hand from the vocalist's cheek, and walking past him into the bedroom.  
  
"Aa, but-..." protested the wine-haired vocalist weakly, raising his hand to the tingling traces on his face.  
  
"Come in here and warm up." interrupted Yuki again, from the velvet darkness of the room beyond.  
  
Shuichi had no reason not to comply.  
  
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The morning came too soon for its own good, and the peacefully sleeping Shuichi was woken by the crisp rustling of the final few leaves on the ground being swirled into miniature cyclones at the discretion of the plaful, albeit frigid, wind. The birds that remained sung sweetly outside the window, and beams of light from the bright, distant, orb of the sun lay softly across the tangled sheets.  
  
Yawning, he sat up, turning to look at the man lying next to him, who was peacefully sleeping on his stomach, the skewed locks of golden hair on his head only serving to give him nore of an attractive vagabond appearance. He smiled quietly, and then hauled himself with a groan out of the bed that was looking more an more comfortable with each passing minute. He didn't dare stay though. Last time he overslept, he woke up breathing a pillow instead of the oxygen that his lungs could feasibly process.  
  
Gathering the various articles of clothing that he could identify as his, he snuck quietly from the room, replacing the door with a quiet click, and sneaking quietly off to the closet to procure some new clothing for the day ahead.  
  
Once he was presentable enough for the outside world, he seated himself on the couch; and finally noticed that Hikari still wasn't in residence, when the cellist didn't grumble and kick him experimentally. He furrowed his brow in thought, and decided that she must have stayed in the hotel, because it was too late.  
  
He turned on the televi, and saw that the followup press conference was already underway. To his surprise, the cellist herself was on the program, sitting to the left of her erstwhile owner. Instead of her trenchcoat she wore a high-necked, long sleeved shirt, though the colour was still that unrelieved black she seemed to favour. Shuichi sighed, wondering why anyone would want to wear that sort of colour instead of something more vibrant. Like his clothes, for example. However he had no time to fixate on that, Tokuru-san was harumphing into the microphone, clearing his throat so that his intensely persuasive voice could filter out into the crowd.  
  
"Everyone, I am quite pleased to see that what I had expected to happen has happened!" He chuckled slightly and leaned over, laying a hand 'gently' on Hikari's shoulder. She flinched, and looked away, expression unresponsive. Tokuru's shoulders shook as if he was laughing, and then he turned back to the press. "Yamashika Hikari-san has been... persuaded to come back to SoundSoft Tokyo." Flashbulbs went off, and the now exorbitantly passive woman narrowed her eyes as if she wanted to hiss, but made no objections.  
  
Shuichi was gaping, hadn't she just signed with NG? Of all the nerve. Miffed, he jumped off the couch, intent on telling Yuki what was happening on the televi.  
  
"Yuuuuuki~! You won't believe what just happened!" the energetic song-slinger almost ran down the door in his hurry to relate his newest discovery. Flinging open the offending wooden obstruction he leaped into the room, fist flung into the air.  
  
"Uhfrg." groaned Yuki, obviously enthralled by Shuichi's inane babble.  
  
"Tokuru-san said that Hikari-chan'll be playing for SoundSoft again! Right after she signed with NG last night too!" He huffed indignantly.  
  
The writer sat up slowly, and then fixed Shuichi in his gaze again, becoming slightly amused by the effect it had on the younger man.  
  
"Did he." it wasn't really a question, just a statement. He sat up, his customary white shirt hanging loosely off him. When Shuichi had left earlier in the morning, he had taken the opportunity to scrounge around on the floor for something suitable to wear. He would have gotten up earlier, but for some reason, he had felt about as lazy as a cat, who had spent all day in the sunshine.  
  
However, this last statement was vaguely troubling to him, and so he pried himself out of bed, sure that there would be some noise like a spoon popping out of treacle or some other grotesque sound. When none came he walked past Shuichi to the living area, the younger man following behind in his footsteps like a faithful dog.  
  
The televi was still on, and Hikari had been goaded into speaking now.  
  
"I... have come to the decision, that I made the wrong choice... in leaving SoundSoft." she was saying, glancing at her 'president' out of the corner of her eye every time she started a phrase. He was smiling smugly, and she paused for a moment, wincing as his hand tightened on her shoulder, though his reptillian smile stayed firmly in place. "I... will continue playing for them as the president so nicely... suggested."  
  
The writer stared impassively at the screen as reporters started to shout questions, each barking further and further up the wrong tree, inventing reasons for her relapse that had nothing to do with it at all. In all appearances, she appeared to be smiling thinly, though her eyes were obviously clouded with fatigue, pain, and fear.  
  
"See, Yuki, look!" Shuichi barked, pointing at the screen as if the newly awakened writer couldn't see it. "I told you she went back to SoundSoft. Can you imagine-"  
  
"Be quiet, brat." he intoned, settling back onto the couch. That high-necked shirt she was wearing, perfect for disguising unsightly bruises. The way she winced every time that Tokuru person touched her, her tired face, and her pain filled eyes.  
  
That girl had been beaten into this, he was sure of it.  
  
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She stared impassively into the croud of reporters clamouring for her attention, her mind looping back to the events leading up to this hellish conclusion.  
  
When she awoke in the hotel, she couldn't remember anything. Hanakara Tokuru stood over her prone form, a triumphant smirk on his face. He said something that she couldn't remember, and she had spat at him. He wiped it off, taking the smirk with it, and glowered.  
  
  
  
if I can't have you, nobody will.  
  
  
  
He had wrapped his pitiless hands about her neck again, squeezing out all the breath that she had managed to restore. And then-  
  
Flash, click.  
  
Those damn bulbs.  
  
"Actually," she began, throwing the blanket of silence across the room, "I have already signed with N-..." That look again. Like cold steel. She was silenced in an instant, the words freezing in her still bruised throat and sticking like thorns in her mouth. The president turned his gaze out to the waiting press, who were hanging on his every word, like monkeys on a vine... or hangmen on a noose...  
  
A sobering thought. Just when one thought one wasn't going to drop, someone else pulled the lever, and your feet were dangling in mid-air.  
  
"I believe my cellist is tired." He cooed, his voice softer and oilier than a down pillow covered in honey. "This ends the press conference. Thank you all for being here with me." He bowed stiffly at the waist, and then shot her another poison-tipped glance, latching onto her wrist as he pulled her forcefully out.  
  
But nobody argued with Hanakara Tokuru-san.  
  
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"Hai, this is Seguchi Tohma... Ah, Eiri-san! How wonderful of you to call me." The president of NG leaned back in his chair, pleased that he had called. One slim hand doodled yet another signiature, his cheek pressed against the phone to hold it in place.  
  
"...Why would I be watching the SoundSoft press conference? Should I have?"  
  
He stopped doodling, emerald eyes widening imperceptibly.  
  
"...I see. Thank you for informing me, Eiri-san." As usual, the writer had hung up without any semblance of a closing statement, leaving the president to think. The cellist was, after all, just another asset to NG, no matter how talented she was. However, Hanakaru and he had had a slight dissagreement at one time, about how one gets musicians to play for one.  
  
If Eiri-san was right, and Tohma had no reason to doubt it, his old... 'friend' was still following the choke and appropriate method, which he wouldn't countenance. Especially when it was one of his signed members.  
  
Picking up the phone, he punched in a few numbers, and let it ring.  
  
Some things, like ASK, had to be removed.  
  
Some things, like Hanakara Tokuru had to be eaten away at.  
  
Seguchi Tohma was not a rat that one can sneeze at.  
  
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Notes: How was it? Awful? I thought so. x.x; Many, many, apologies for the rushed ending, but my writers block bit me bum right at the end.  
  
Anyway, I have a new feature to introduce.  
  
Whenever I weite a chapter that contains the possibility for a lemon, I'll give a little star thing at the end of the notes, like this [`~*~`]. This chapter was the very first!  
  
So the new rule is, since I'm a bit apprehensive about writing lemons, I've decided to put this into effect. If I receive five or more reviews concerning the writing/production of the Yuki/Shuichi lemon for this chapter, I'll write it and post it, with a little thanks(?) note to the first five people to comment on it.  
  
I'm not scrounging for reviews or anything, I feel quite gifted by the ones I've already received (Arigatou!) It just... I need a little carrot to push me to write the scene.  
  
Kisses!  
  
+.Mitsukai.+  
  
Remember...  
  
All the characters are copyright of Maki Murakami, as is the series as a whole (please don't sue me, I'm so poor I have to use flames to eat. ;.;), except for Kari-chan, who is mine. You're welcome to use her (Who would want to?) if you'd like *cough* just tell me beforehand, because I want to read whatever happens to have her in it.  
  
The moral of the story is, there are no morals 


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